How Do We Know What is a Sin?

Hello, welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist. This is a daily conversation about scripture, culture and media from a Reformed perspective. Get your Bible and coffee ready and prepare to engage today's topic.

Here's your host, Pastor Keith Foskey.

Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist. My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist. Today is Tuesday, November 17th, 2020. If you're following along in our daily Bible reading today, you're going to be reading John chapter 21.

The Question of What Makes Something Sinful

What is sin? Well, that's a question we're going to deal with today because recently I was having a conversation with a person from our church and this has actually been several weeks back now, but we were talking about Bible basics.

This was a new believer, someone who I know listens to the program. So again, Nicole, if you're out there, thank you for your input into the program. And we were talking about some things that are helpful for new believers.

And a few weeks ago I did a few lessons on the subject of prayer, prayer in the life of a new believer. And I may revisit the subject of prayer at some point in the future. But another question that we had as we were discussing was the question of what makes something sinful?

How do we know what is sin and how do we know what things we should not be doing if we are Christians? I think one of the things that we do forget sometimes as believers is that we are called to live morally upright lives.

That should not be a difficult thing to say. That should not be in any way a scandalous thing to say. Christians are called to live lives that are not sinless because we are not perfect. But we are called to avoid sin.

We're called to flee temptation. We're called to flee immorality. And so ultimately, those are the things that we know we should do. But then this rises a question, well, what constitutes a sin? What makes something a sin?

So today, I want to talk about the nature of sin. I want to talk about what is sin and how the Bible defines sin. Because the Bible tells us, the writings of John the Apostle say, these things are written that you will not sin, that you may not sin.

We're called to avoid sin. That should not be a difficult thing to say. But again, for some people, it is. Because in many churches, the very idea of preaching against sin has fallen out of popularity.

It's fallen out of favor. There's a very popular pastor out in Texas who says that he never preaches on sin because he doesn't want to focus on the negative. He wants to focus on the positive. But honestly, how do you know what is the positive without understanding the negative?

It's very important to recognize that if we're not preaching on sin and recognizing what sin is, then ultimately, we are not preaching the full message of the Bible. The Bible is very clear about the danger of sin.

The Bible is very clear about our responsibility to avoid sin and to repent of sin. And so, sin is an important subject. And sin is one that we all need to be concerned about. Ultimately, we know if we are believers that our sins have been paid for on the cross.

Jesus took the penalty for our sin. But oftentimes, we forget that in salvation, there is salvation from the penalty of sin, which we call justification. But there's also salvation from the power of sin.

We now have the Holy Spirit who lives within us. And the Holy Spirit who lives within us lives there so that he will sanctify us. And sanctification is the process by which we are conformed to the image of Christ.

And if we're not being conformed to the image of Christ, then that would be an issue. That's a major issue. If we're not seeing God work in our lives to bring about more and more hatred of sin, more and more understanding of our own sinfulness, more and more understanding of our need for sanctification, then I would say that there's some kind of a disconnect there in our spiritual life.

And so, when we talk about the subject of sin, we talk about what is sin. That's going to be what we talk about today. And then on tomorrow's program, we're going to talk about some more specific... Today we're going to look at sin in a broad category.

What is sin? And then tomorrow, we're going to look at some of the lists of sins in the Bible. Because what brought this up, the conversation that came up was, if I remember correctly, when I was speaking to our church member, it was the subject of gossip.

And it was, you know, the idea was, well, had always seen gossip as... This person had always seen gossip as a bad thing, but not necessarily as a sinful thing. But then when she was reading the scriptures and she saw that the Bible actually says gossip is sin, it really put it in a new light.

Because it's one thing to say something is a bad habit. It's one thing to say something is not really helpful. But when we talk about sin, we are talking about something that is against God himself. It is something that God forbids.

And therefore, it is serious. So how do we define sin? Well, we're going to define sin today in 1 John 3, verse 4. This is probably the clearest explanation of the definition of sin. The basic definition is this.

Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness. Okay, so right there, sin is defined in relation to God and his holy nature. It's in relation specifically to God's law.

Sin is first and foremost a transgression of God's law, of God's holy commands. In fact, this is what the Westminster Shorter Catechism says. The question, what is sin? Answer, sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God.

Now, hear that again. Sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God. What does it mean to want of conformity? That means you're not living up to it. You're not doing what it says.

You're not conforming to it. You lack conformity to something. So if the law of God tells you to do something and you're lacking conformity to it, then you're sinning. Or if the law of God tells you to do something and you are doing the opposite, you're transgressing the law.

And so sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God. Millard Erickson said this. He said, sin is any lack of conformity, active or passive, to the moral law of God. This may be a matter of act, thought, or inner disposition.

And so we can sin in our behavior. We can also sin in our thoughts. Jesus taught us this. When in the Sermon on the Mount, he said that if a man, he said, you've heard it said, if you commit adultery, do not commit adultery, that's a sin.

But I tell you, if a man looks at a woman to lust after her, he has committed adultery with her in his heart, which tells us that sin can be not just an act that we do on the outside, but sin can be an act that we do on the inside.

It can be part of our inner disposition. And then so we have to consider sin as more simply than just the acts of a person, but also is the disposition of the heart. And so God, it begins with God's law.

And if we consider for a moment just the most basic principles of God's law, God tells us not to serve other gods, not to go after other gods, but to serve him alone. And the heart seeks out idols. Therefore, we become sinful in our idolatry.

In fact, Romans 1 tells us the most basic sin is when people look around them. They know God created the world. They know God is present because they see his divine nature and attributes in the things that are made.

And yet they deny his existence and they go and worship other gods. Idolatry is the basis of all other sins in one sense. And I would say even before that is pride. And I've made this argument in sermons before that pride is what causes us to become idolaters, because pride makes us believe that we know better than God.

And this is ultimately what caused the downfall of Adam and Eve. Remember what Satan said to Eve. On the day that you eat of this, you will be like God, knowing good and evil. You will be like God. It's an issue of pride.

You will be your own God. And so, first and foremost, sin is a violation of the law of God. And if someone is saying that they can violate God's law and it not be a sin, then they are denying what the scripture says.

Now, we do have to consider one thing in regard to this, because there are laws in the Bible which are not applicable to today. Those laws, because they have been fulfilled in Christ, and particularly old covenant laws, and very specifically the laws regarding the ceremonies of sacrifices.

You know, there were laws that told the people of Israel that they were to go out and sacrifice animals. There were laws that told them how they were supposed to dress and what they were supposed to eat and those things, which were very specific to the people of Israel prior to the coming of Christ.

But when Christ came, he fulfilled those laws. And so, there are laws which now, if we are not living in light of those laws, it is not a sin. For instance, in the old covenant, a person could not eat certain foods.

But in the new covenant, the Bible tells us very clearly, in the new covenant, those foods have been made clean. And in the old covenant, there were very strict restrictions regarding how things were to be done in the temple.

And yet, the temple is now destroyed. In AD 70, the temple was destroyed. We no longer live with a physical temple, but we live as individual temples of the Holy Spirit. The Bible tells us the Spirit lives within us.

Therefore, our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. And that comes with responsibilities as well. New covenant responsibilities about how we are to see our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit. And so, with all that being said, we have to understand that most specifically, the laws that we are speaking of are those laws which transcend the covenants.

They transcend the old covenant and are seen in both the old covenant and the new covenant. Most specifically, summed up for us by Jesus, when he was explaining that the law can be summed up in two great commandments, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself.

He said, upon those are all the law and the prophets. So, those basic commandments of law give us a standard to begin to understand the basis of sin. If I do something that is not loving toward God, if I do something that violates God's nature, his character, his attributes, if I do something that is offensive to my neighbor, hurtful to my neighbor, if I lie to them, steal from them, attack them verbally, abusively, this is not loving and therefore this would be sinful.

And so, there is the basis for understanding sin. Sin begins with understanding the righteousness of God, which is demonstrated to us in his perfect law. And therefore, the first way to understand sin is to understand that sin is a violation of the law of God.

Now, again, tomorrow we're going to look more specifically at certain sins which are found in the vice lists of scripture. But until then, I pray that this lesson has been helpful to you and I look forward to seeing you on tomorrow's program.

Thank you for listening to Coffee with a Calvinist. My name is Keith Foskey and I have been your Calvinist. May God bless you.

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Jesus Christ Came to Save Sinners

As you go about your day, remember this, Jesus Christ came to save sinners. All who come to him in repentance and faith will find him to be a perfect savior. He is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through him.

May God be with you.